Demonstrators Call For Migrant Families To Be Reunited In Pittsburgh Protest

PITTSBURGH (KDKA) – Protests were held around the country Saturday, including in Pittsburgh, with demonstrators calling for migrant families to be reunited.

Hundreds of people crowded into Mellon Square, carrying signs against Trump administration policies and demanding families be reunited after they were forcibly separated at the border.

Watch more footage from the protest —

“The idea that we would separate children from their parents goes against every value we have as Americans,” Rep. Mike Doyle said. “We have seen an administration whose xenophobic immigration policies brought us the Muslim ban, all the way to [the zero tolerance policy] and we need to end all of it. We need to have zero tolerance for these policies.”

A judge has given the president 30 days to reunite families.

The protest is Pittsburgh’s version of the National “Families Belong Together” Day of Action.

“Pittsburgh is an immigrant town. We help our neighbors when they’re down. Pittsburgh is a family town,” Tracy Baton, director of the Pittsburgh Women’s March, said.

Stephanie Jiminez, a Pitt student with the Pitt Latinx Student Association, is the daughter of a Mexican immigrant.

“It angers me. It angers us to watch immigrants, refugees and asylum seekers just like our families be robbed of even a percentage of the chance that our families have had. This really hits home for us,” she said.

“We both were adopted from Guatemala at a very age, but we can still feel what kids who live there are feeling,” protester Carlo Snyder said.

The protest ended with reminders to vote.

“The only way we’re going to change it is to change the face of the House of Representatives and the United States Senate,” Doyle said, “and we can’t do that if you don’t come out and vote.”